Tall, dark, handsome, with green eyes; these are the features that first draw me to the young gentleman who occupies the seat next to me on the plane. We are both ready to take off from Abu Dhabi bound for Athens.
But my thoughts are unnerving me, making me antsy; they are far removed from learning more about this wild beauty next to me. The anxiety and fear of what I am about to see in Greece in 2012 has preoccupied my mind from the moment I departed from Melbourne – in fact, from the time I planned this trip.
The Greece I left behind in 2009 is long gone according to my family and friends. I have become obsessed with this ‘other’ Greece they speak of. A mixture of sadness, fear and disappointment is taking over my thoughts.
We both start to shuffle in our seats, trying to get comfortable. With seat belts on, we are ready for take off.
Not even a few minutes into the flight, the handsome young gentleman smiles widely in the direction of my son.
“What’s your name?” he asks my ten-year-old boy.
“Alexander,” my son responds, following with the same question, which gives me the leeway to ask: “Do you work in Abu Dhabi?”
“No, I work in Greece. I’m with my brother and my sister-in-law. They are sitting at the back. We are returning to Greece from Pakistan. We have been to our home country for the marriage of our sister.” The young man says all this in fluent and perfect Greek.
“You there, in Australia, might understand a lot better how it is to be a migrant,” he quips, taking me by surprise.
His engaging glance signals to me that he wants to start a conversation. Unbeknownst to him, it is me who wants to know more.
“Eugenia,” I say, stretching my hand in his direction to greet him.
“Jimmy,” he replies, accepting my hand.
“How many years have you lived in Greece?” I ask.
“Fifteen years now. I went, like many others, as an illegal immigrant, but I had no choice back then. Someone in my family had to take the risk. We are seven brothers and sisters. I married a Greek girl and live in Lamia. I work in the local food market. I have my stall in the laiki”.
Even though his words are clear enough, I sense a hidden meaning behind them. His body language, his tone, rings true with the undercurrent, the truth he wants to say which is: “I’m not like the others, I’m a hard working man.”
Jimmy goes on to talk in greater detail about his family. His parents are farmers but have no land of their own. They are working on the property of a landowner, who is taking a hefty percentage of the yield while they live off the meagre remains.
He goes on to talk about his sister’s wedding. His eyes are glowing with happiness.
“We had 300 guests, we went to a hall – not very expensive – but it was a very nice wedding.”
He adds that he and his brother, who also lives and works in Greece, paid for the wedding. The pride in his eyes, in his tone, is reminiscent of someone describing a lifetime achievement.
But while he sits and talks about his family, my mind remains focused. Golden Dawn; the attacks on immigrants. I want to know what the situation is like for Jimmy in Greece. I have to do it, I have to ask. I start with a “sorry”, not sure what I am apologising about. My underlying thirst for the truth? Changing the subject to something that will be traumatic? I am a journalist, trained to ask, to wonder, to be informed in order to inform others.
“What is the situation like for you in Greece?” I blurt out.
Without missing a beat, he answers with a rhetorical question. “What do you think it’s like?”
And with that he stops. Stops talking, stops looking at me. His eyes, his head, drop downwards. There’s a heavy weight you can see in his shoulders as he slumps forward shaking his head. He is downhearted, beaten and raw. But then his head comes back up – a courageous man. He gathers his thoughts and replies.
“You there in Australia might understand a lot better how it is to be a migrant,” he says again, trying in a subliminal way to establish the fact that we are two of a kind. We are both migrants, both living away from our immediate families, both of us nostalgic for our homeland, whilst living in a foreign land, a land that is now our home.
“I do not dare go outside my house when it gets dark,” he starts.
“I’m legal! I have all the papers, but I do not dare. I have been married to a Greek for five years, I have my house, the whole neighbourhood knows me, but in this neighbourhood it is too dangerous to go outside my front door at night. I never thought it would get to that.”
And his fear is not a monster that lives in his dreams. He had seen the face of it, its blazing eyes, its threatening rotten teeth.
“It was six months ago…” he begins as I lean in to hear a story that I know is going to be hard for him to retell – yet he wants me to know.
“I was loading my van in the early hours of the morning to go to work. I closed the boot and was heading to the driver’s seat. Suddenly a bike stopped in front of me. The bike rider was not more than 20 years old and the girl he had with him was even younger. I am telling you, they were teenagers. The boy started to spit on me. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Shut up filthy bastard. You stinking dirty dog! We will bash the shit out of you – skatofatsa, palioaliti.’ They kept on swearing at me and the boy grabbed me by the throat and spat on me.
“I told him ‘I am not like others, I’m not illegal.’ I kept on saying, but to no avail. He was choking me. I was trying to restrain my anger in order not to grab him by the throat. The only thought that stopped me was the trouble I would get in from the police if I did it. He landed two punches on my face. I was just sitting there taking all the abuse he could give. Do you see this?” he says, showing me a scar on his forehead. “I got it that morning. I did nothing Eugenia. I was just going to my work. I did not hurt anyone. I never did. I am a good person,” he adds.
I want to sink in my chair, disappear from the world. Never in my life have I been ashamed of being Greek but right here and now I cannot stomach what I am hearing.
“They were just kids…” is all I can mutter.
“Yes, children. Even children are after us. Soon after, I met the Golden Dawn guys. It was a market day. They came to my stall and asked for my papers. I showed them as I always carry them with me. They took three crates of fruit with them and disappeared. You don’t know how happy I was that they did not start a fight. Normally that’s what they do.”
He stops for a minute and thinks.
“I don’t know where to go with this situation. I don’t know. I do not want to leave Greece. Greece is my home now. What to do? Take my wife and go back to Pakistan? I can’t do this, I have to endure it all. And I am lucky compared to what my brother in Athens has to go through. Every time I talk with him on the phone, I tremble. I’m afraid that something tragic will happen to him one day, and he is bringing up three children!”
There is desperation in the tone of his voice, and yet a final acceptance that this is the way things are, and he just has to live that way.
And just when I feel that he has said a lot, a lot more than I can manage to take, Jimmy does the unexpected. He wipes out the traumatic atmosphere his testimonies have created in a split second.
“You’re from Australia and you may be able to help me. I was thinking of importing an Australian breed of cows to Pakistan. They are cows who produce a lot of milk. Do you know how?” he asks.
“Jimmy will find a way,” I reply with a smile.
“You know, I want my parents to breed them and sell them locally. It would be great for them if you can help me,” he says, a man who never gives up in the face of adversity.
Admiration and a hint of jealousy for this young man makes the guilt in my heart more acute.
“I admire you Jimmy, you and your quest for a better life not just for you, but for your family too.
“With all you have to endure every day, you never lose your optimism,” I say.
“That’s why I put my life in danger and chose to live so far away from my family. To lend them a helping hand,” he replies.
We have half an hour left of our flight to Athens and the conversation turns to food when we break into laughter after seeing Alexander’s face as he takes a look at his airplane breakfast. Jimmy teases him about the food, but extends a kind gesture by proposing a card game to the little one.
The ten-year-old, who has been in search of a card game partner throughout the trip, is thrilled by the offer. As the two new friends throw themselves into their game of cards, I am left for a moment to collect my thoughts and organise my feelings before today’s impending arrival into the ‘new’ Greece.
Impossible, I think. It’s hard to erase or even to forget Jimmy’s words. Hard to let go of the cathartic moment that always envelops me when I land in my home country, the moment that, courtesy of nostalgia, always, always brings a tear to my eye. Happiness overwhelms me, and my heart aches every single time I land in Greece.
We land. All of us get ready to disembark. Once again I stretch out my hand to my new friend.
“It was so nice to meet you Jimmy. Give me your phone number and the moment I get back to Australia I’ll go on a search for your ‘milky’ cows and how to send them to Pakistan,” I say.
Jimmy surprises me once again.
“No handshake yet. Here is my phone number. You’re loaded like a mule, isn’t that the Greek saying? Here, I’ll help you to the exit.”
And that’s how I take my first step into the Greece of 2012. Right alongside Jimmy the Pakistani, my friend.